North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership has been awarded UNICEF’s top accolade for providing high quality care to families to support continued breastfeeding.
The Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) Gold accreditation certificate was presented to representatives of NAHS, as well as staff of NHS Ayrshire & Arran and South and East HSCPs, at an event held at Fullarton Connexions in Irvine recently.
The prestigious award was achieved in November last year following an assessment of Ayrshire’s Health Visiting and Family Nurse Partnership Teams, as well as the Community Infant Feeding Team.
BFI standards provide a framework to ensure that infant feeding care delivered to families is evidence-based, consistent, and supports staff to deliver a service that provides the best possible care for new families.
Breastfeeding promotes optimum growth and development for babies, providing nutrition, comfort and protection from infection, and as such is promoted and supported across Ayrshire and Arran.
However, the award also recognises the care provided to families who are formula feeding and encourages responsive feeding as a way of establishing close, loving relationships with the baby.
Having first been awarded Baby Friendly accreditation in 2012, followed by subsequent re-accreditation in 2014, 2017 and 2020, the Gold Award builds on this accomplishment with a particular focus on achieving sustainability.
As part of the assessment process, UNICEF audited families who had accessed infant feeding support in Ayrshire within the last year, with 93 per cent of mothers responding that they were ‘very happy’ with their care.
One mum said: “I received a high level of care from my Health Visitor, and she was so understanding and compassionate,” with another adding “all of the staff were lovely.”
Handing over the award to staff, Janet Dalzell, Professional Lead for UNICEF’s Baby Friendly Initiative in Scotland, said:I am very proud to present this award, which recognises outstanding leadership, positive culture to support staff and families, effective monitoring of infant feeding services and examples of progressing services to meet local need.
“This is a prestigious award and has involved local mothers, staff, managers and senior leaders from the organisations and has been approved by an independent designation committee.”
Service Manager, Frances Gunn, said: “I’m incredibly proud that we have achieved the Baby Friendly Gold accreditation. All health visiting and family nursing staff across Ayrshire and Arran strive to offer high quality care around infant feeding, so it’s great to see UNICEF recognising this.
“Feedback from the Gold assessment included a staff survey, which highlighted that we have a ‘motivated workforce’ and a ‘supportive, encouraging and kind culture’. This is the ideal foundation for us to continue delivering care that meets the needs of families across Ayrshire.”
“I’m incredibly proud that we have achieved the Baby Friendly Gold accreditation. All health visiting and family nursing staff across Ayrshire and Arran strive to offer high quality care around infant feeding, so it’s great to see UNICEF recognising this.”Frances Gunn, Service Manager